Steynian 321

~ ELMO RIDES AGAIN: Former CIC hater & Steynophobe lines up with some leftoids on a new paper, The Charger …. (canuckjihad)

~ AS A HISTORY GEEK, I loved the movie ‘300’– not least for having read the whole story in Herodotus. Those few (and theor allies) stood against the largest army ever, up to that time.

Our very own brave ‘300’ stand around us, and we don’t rightly see them, because they don’t wear wear codpieces (OK, we hear mark Steyn wears one, but only for comfort) or any of the other outward accoutrements of King Leonidas and his elite Spartans.

As at Thermopylae they stand against a horde before them, and treachery at home behind them; they stand on behalf of all of us; these few stand and speak out, a personal cost, professional cost, and against the received wisdom of how to deal with the impending threat.

Those who receive awards and acclamation and worldly praises are not always the true and greatest heroes of this or any age– in fact, as we’ve said before, the real heroes tend to be quiet, git ‘er done, no fuss kinda folks. I know one older man in a rural community who escaped not once, but twice from German prison-camps, and escaped back to allied lines and got right back into the fight.

As the war ended, he tracked down other prisoners from his squadron who had been moved around by the Germans, stole a truck, rove into the Russian sector, and collected them from under the noses of the belligerent and victorious Russians, and drove the liberated airmen back toward allied lines; when the truck broke down, he and his men walked the rest of the way– a hundred miles– to the British and American lines. Or the little old Anglican tea-lady who served as wartime bodyguard to Prime Minister and Mrs. Churchill for an entire evening while they enjoyed a special screening of Casablanca. She then went back to her top secret work for the war ministry. Quiet heroes: the best kind.

So remember to support, encourage, and appreciate our own ‘300’, fighting the very different kind of battle against and within the West in this new age of terror, subversion, and submission. Like our serving men and women in the armed forces, they need us, as much as we need them, and their self-sacrifice. ~

~ DEAR INTERWEB BLOGGERS and other digital denizens of teh intertoobs: do you have a digital will? You know, a full list of your websites, passwords, Paypal, eBay account, e-mail accounts, all that digital life you engage in that’s not addressed by traditional wills and suchlike? If your loved ones had to guess and reconstruct your online life, could they? Write it all down, seal it in an envelope along with your will and other post-death instructions, just in case. For that matter, make sure your will is up to date, and don’t use a legal will kit.

The web is already full of dead sites and data, like the near orbit of earth is full of human space-junk. Don’t leave your digital legacy up for grabs. And those of you writing obituaries for blogger loved ones, make sure to mention that online life and site by name. It’s not just a goofy hobby for most of us. ~

Our reaction? Whatever. He got caught being ignorant, and should man up, and step down for a bit. The non-apology he did offer was of the “Oh, but I know better and so should you” type, along the line of the common “There was a misjudgement.” Dude is a Catholic, of sorts– he should know better. Confession in Catholicism or Orthodoxy is personal, not universal, and specific, not general. Your sin, at such and such a time, against God and this or that person. Examination of conscience, contrition, confession, repentance, reparation, amendment of life. It’s like a dentist on a bad cavity in your mouth, versus not a general expression of the utility of dentistry generally speaking, for the populace.

Our Inquisitionalism

Modern apologies are non-apologetic, in the deepest sense: instead of ‘fessing up to the reasons and facts of what I did, I deny, excuse, minimize, redirect, and explainify away until the ‘sin’ was making me feel bad about nothing so bad after all.

Mind you, modern inquisitions love to squeeze out confessions to crimes and sins that in most times and societies are neither. Just ask the young people under the jackboot at their alma mater, the University of Calgary, for opposing the abortion of millions of Canadians over the past 40 years. Tribunals and speech-cops monitor student conduct and words, sniffing for pomo wrongs and insensitivities against the official victim classes as defined by political correctness. Mr. Kinsella or any Canadadian can procure an abortion upt to the last moments of labour and it’s not even illegal: make lame fun of an old saw about chinese food, and you’re doomed.

On The Other Hand

The following is a guess, but not far off the mark: rural Korans and Chinese do eat animals we consider to be pets– puppies in Korea, and various critters including cats in China. For the immigrant Chinese community, this is a class/ rural-urban split. Think: hillbillies eating roadkill, or BBQ raccoon or o’possum. It’s not something you brag about. That’s miles away from whether modern Canadian Chinese food has cat it it– but it does touch on a real sensitivity, on immigrant versus establish Canadian, on rural/ medieval versus urban/ 21st century. The fact is that there are two Chinas, one striving to be like the West, perhaps 250 million, and a billion living in various stages all the way back to the Middle Ages.

So, Mr. Kinsella– you helped make this politically correct over-sensitive kneejerk semi-morality. Now, suck it up, and don’t give us special pleading. Learn from the culture you recently stung: for pre-Communist Chinese morality, personal dishonour and admission of guilt attach to you, and those you represent. Squirming out from under may placate your conscience or your slithery compatriots, but the Chinese know a chicken when they see one.

~ BACK IN THE DAY, when the Binks was earning the Driver’s License thingy, the Binks-Dad offered this remarkably helpful bit of advice: “Pretend All The Other Drivers Are Trying To Kill You.”

It’s saved my life– and those of my passengers– dozens of times. Try it. That little old lady in the Tercel? Psychotic auto slayer. It makes more sense of the behaviour of many drivers than thinking they are all normal people.

I’ve even taught the Binklings to ride and walk downtown with the saying in mind– “Pretend All The Drivers Are Trying To Kill You.” So far, so good.

Then I came across the above saying from that sterling thinker Edmund Burke: “There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.” In the awareness of what is possible, you cannot risk only hoping for the best. Evil is endlessly malicious and destructive and slippery-sloped. If you flip the moral assumptions back 20 years, all the current lunacies up for public discussion now are things that people warned us about then, and other people pooh-poohed.

You may be paranoid, and still have people out to get you. In 2009, we have a couple hundred million militant jihadis after us. Figuring out plague, nukes, terror, and soft-jihad infiltration.

Believing all possible evil of evil men– it’s the only sane way of dealing with enemies. The jihadism we know about now seems bad enough, but I’m more than willing to think there’s more and worse we have yet to uncover or go through. In the traffic of the world, there actually are other drivers out to kills us.

The same principle applies to dealing with Utopian Progressives, or the various radicalized tax-fed leeches seeking to promote their agenda of man-hating, baby-killing, communism, school-reinventing, and more. Just imagine the worst, and you’re probably only half way there.

~ A PUBLIC SHAMING Doesn’t Go As Far As It Used To– “The Human Rights racket has hardly skipped a beat, despite the humiliation suffered at the hands of the Levant and Steyn fiascos. This beauty comes to us courtesy the Saskatchewan HRC” …. (sda)

~ ORIANNA FALLACI– “you are my comrade in arms. Our opponents are leftists. Conservative are too genteel. You are warriors and warriors can not get tired.” …. (ibloga.blog)

~ THE HYNEK– “The issue, instead, is one of personal freedoms — religious freedoms, yes, but also freedom of expression more generally. If this nurse is not free to be open about her Christian faith, Myers and his ilk are not free to be open about their atheism” …. (kennethhynek)

~ DENYING CAMPUS-CLUB status to groups that oppose abortion infringes on freedom of speech, says a civil liberties group, wading into a dispute that in recent months has pitted several university student associations against religious groups. In a letter, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association is objecting to a resolution supporting student unions that denies funding and office space for anti-abortion groups …. (walkersunknownthoughts.blog)

~ CANADIAN Human Rights Commission: biased, fascist and incompetent– By Ron Gray, Special to No Apologies …. (blazingcatfur.blog)

~ ALL TOGETHER. NOW! “For the communitarian, the idea of Another not being a conformist in all ways, body, mind and soul, is an outrage against Nature. Communitarians, Statists, Muslims, collectivists of all sorts, they hate individuals and individualism” …. (covenantzone.blog)

~ UK ‘HEALTH’ CARE: You Can Kill Babies, But Not Pray for Patients …. (merecomments)

~ VIA VOLOKH– Assessing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Last December was they 60th anniversary of the enactment of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has an article in The New Republic claiming that the Declaration was a major advance in the protection of human rights” …. (volokh.com)

~ USEFUL IDIOTS– “Thanks for Not Torturing! From the perspective of Religious Left groups, U.S. detention facilities for suspected terrorists since 9/11 resembled a global version of Dracula’s castle.” …. (theird)

~ ON PLATO, on Francis, on Ecology, On Donner und Blitzen …. (covenantzone.blog)

Smarter President Ever™

~ HOOKY?! HOW OLD ARE THESE PEOPLE, EXACTLY? Job Too Hard For Obama, So He Plays Hooky, Laughs. “We got out! They let us out!” Mrs. Obama said as the kids and their teachers laughed; After 14 Days Obama Already Tired of the White House …. (sentinel.blog, ace.mu.nu)

Mayor Ray Nagin Could Not Be Reached For Comment

~ KENTUCKY ICE STORM– “The president stays out of the way of the first responders, and then – usually 3 or 4 days into an event – views the damage. If possible, he gets on the ground and meets the people and shows himself to be present to them and to the situation. President Obama has not done that. 7 days into the mess, he has not asked Americans to donate to the Red Cross or other disaster-relief agencies. He has not flown over the area to see the extent of the disaster. He has not gotten onto the ground to meet with anyone”; Barack Obama doesn’t care about white people! …. (theanchoressonline, MaD)

~ O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA! BAA BAA BAA! Robert Cox alerts us to a disturbing use of school property: a childrens’ indoctrination class orchestrated by Leftist moonbats in New Rochelle, New York …. (directorblue.blog)

~ SCIPIO NOTES– “The Obama has been in power scarcely two weeks, and already things fall apart and the centre cannot hold; With Nancy Killefer and Tom Daschle being the latest casualties of those members of the Obama team afflicted with tax woes, Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, asks: “Do any of these people pay taxes?” …. (returnofscipio, bloviator.blog)

~ SACRED SECULARISM, By Lisa Fabrizio: “Many folks have pointed out that Barack Obama has been treated by his supporters in and out of the media like a new messiah, the Saviour, the chosen one. Many other folks, including me, thought that this was not only sacrilegious but a case of downright overblown rhetorical politics. Now I’m not so sure” …. (spectator)

~ PHARAOH OBAMA: Building a Monument to Tolerance on the Rubble of Religious Freedom …. (AlanSears)

~ FREEDOM FAIRY writes: “Sounding all too familiar. Private Citizens under attack by the President of the United States.” …. (realbarackobama)

~ HEIL TO DER CHIEF! The Sting of replacing Hail to the Chief is no laughing matter …. (ibloga.blog)

~ MAKE SURE IT’S HALAL! Perhaps Obama’s way of restoring America’s partnership with the Muslim world is to deliver Israel to them on a silver platter. He began that “job” last summer while visiting Israel when he said the Jewish nation would be “crazy” to refuse the Saudi peace deal …. (humanevents)

~ THOSE DIZZYING HEIGHTS– In this time of crisis and never-ending bailouts, President Obama has denounced Wall Street’s $18.4 billion in bonuses last year as “the height of irresponsibility.” …. (claudiarosett)

~ THE CJUNKERS– “We were told again and again that The Big O would change the way things work … that he would usher in a new day where a more gentle and compromising attitude would prevail. We didn’t think at the time that he meant compromising his own stated promises” …. (cjunk.blog)

~ IN AN INTERESTING POST today, Ilya Somin criticizes President Obama’s assertion, in his inaugural address, that “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” …. (discriminations.us)

~ DASCHLE DOWNED! “Barack Obama, shame on you for standing behind not one, but TWO THIEVES. And really, how DARE you put a man with HUGE conflicts of interest in charge of something as CRITICAL as Health Care! I never believed you were sincere about that subject to begin with, but to thumb your nose at America with this appointment attempt is over the top even for you” …. (uppitywoman08)

~ A MEASLY 12 Cents on the dollar is all that the US stimulus bill directs toward actual stimulus … the rest is pork. If you’ve been watching the markets since this travesty came out, you’d know that most investors aren’t pleased …. (cjunk.blog)

~ ‘BAMA BUDDIES GOOGLE– Google is releasing free software Wednesday that enables people to keep track of each other using their cell phones …. (cbsnews)

Jihad

~ REJECTED IN DEATH– University of Guelph Arboretum says no to Aqsa Parvez memorial …. (fivefeetoffury)

~ JUDEN, RAUS– “GUNFIRE IN ATTACK ON JEWISH CENTER IN AMSTERDAM: Kahane was right, for every Jew a 22. Jews better arm themselves. Fast. Not only are we talking a whole new level of Jew hatred, we are talking breakneck speed” …. (atlasshrugs2000)

~ PETER HITCHENS: “Did the London Police run away?” From an angry Islamofascist mob? Oh yea, this is all too familiar …. (blazingcatfur.blog)

~ POLITICIZED SCIENCE– Gilbert Burnham censured for violating ethics code: Gilbert whom? He’s lead researcher of the controversial study of “excess deaths” in Iraq attributable to the US-led invasion, you know, the 650 000 zillions of dead Iraqi civilians, as oft quoted by opponents to the Iraqi war …. (novascotiascott)

~ EVIL? WORLD SHRUGS– “Mark Steyn via Via Atlasshrugs. “…when Muslim terrorists capture Jews, it’s not a hostage situation, it’s a mass murder-in-waiting. The sole surviving “militant” revealed that the Jewish center had been targeted a year in advance. The 28-year-old rabbi was Gavriel Holtzberg. His pregnant wife was Rivka Holtzberg. Their orphaned son is Moshe Holtzberg, and his brave nanny is Sandra Samuels” …. (colonelrobertneville.blog)

~ SPREAD THE LOVE? “Iran is willing to provide nuclear technology to other Muslim states, Iran’s hard-line president said Thursday, notching up his rhetoric as his regime rejects international pressure to cut back its atomic program” …. (sigmundcarlandalfred)

~ MONTREAL COURT hears lawsuit against Iranian government: “Stephan Hachemi has initiated a civil lawsuit before the Quebec High Court against the government of Iran in the death of his mother, photojournalist Zahra Kazemi. While visiting Tehran in June 2003, Ms Kazemi, who held dual Canadian and Iranian citizenship, was arrested, beaten, and died in custody” …. (novascotiascott)

~ SPENCER– “If, say, the Hindu community had only been fortunate enough to produce four young men willing to blow the hell out of Londoners…then the BBC might credit Hindus with inventing the modern world” …. (jihadwatch.org)